Pirates

This past weekend we set up at a flea market. It’s an indoor one, held about three times a year. We’ve gone to it for about ten years but only set up a booth twice. At the table next to us was a gent I’d never seen before (we often see the same folks at these events.) He had sort of an Indiana Jones thing going; a tan ‘pith hat’, camouflage shirt and sunglasses. Yes, he wore them all day long. He had an interesting mix of musical instruments for sale, most in need of repair, and he strummed a mandolin, until it sold, then played some type of wooden flute.

Our neighbor also had a number of books for sale, most of them newer and he had read them all. When a prospective buyer picked one up, he’d tell them all about it, and whet their appetite to read it for themselves. He also had videos, mostly the older ones, and these, too, he’d talk about when there was any interest. It was fun to listen to him, not only the music, but his stories of places he had traveled to. He had items he had recently ‘picked up in Nepal’, or found while in Africa. He would incorporate his tales into the items and many of the books were from faraway places, and of course, he’d seen them all first hand. I do not know if any of his stories were true, but the passer-bys were drawn in and listened intently. They often purchased items and I admit he was quite a salesman.

At the end of the day, he was giving the records away “two for a buck” and I strolled over. Imagine my surprise when I found one called “High Barbaree” which offered “rocking rollicking songs of the sea in Hi-Fi.” The cover art alone was worth it, showing a red scarfed scalawag, with almost a snarl on his face. He is wearing a patch on one eye, the expected gold earring, sporting a scruffy beard and leather shoulder treatment, perhaps from a satchel that is filled with gold doubloons.

It was recorded in England and the songs include Blow the Man Down, Spanish Ladies, What Shall we Do with a Drunken Sailor, The Chinese Bumboat Man, A Life on the Ocean Wave, When Johnny Comes Down to Hilo, Heart of Oak, and of course, High Barbaree!

I was especially excited because several of my grandchildren are crazy about pirates. This may be due in part to the fabulous Johnny Depp movies, but also a trip to Florida where they met up with Quartermaster Moe, who offered them many tales of the sea from years gone by.

They also appreciate old records, even though many kids their ages would only want CD’s or Blue Rays. They play records with their mom and seem to enjoy the old music, so finding one with pirate songs should be a hoot!

I have not had the chance to play it yet, but plan to do so when the family is in town. I am sure I’ll get my 50 cents worth of enjoyment. If not, I’ll try to sell it for $2.00, which would be approx. a “buck an ear” for the pirate’s cover picture. (Sorry, I should be pun-ished.”)

We were on vacation last week, in Florida. In Tampa, to be exact. Along with Disney, we did several other tourist things, which got me thinking about souvenir albums — you know, those old books with construction paper pages and all sorts of postcards and paper glued into them along with hand written notes on what they did and thought… The ones that force you to page through them at the estate sale so long that you have to buy them so you can take them home and really read them. And in doing so you experience the trips taken by persons long gone, to attractions (if not actual places) which may also be long gone… But in those faded pages the spirit(s) still live.

I get goosebumps just thinking about those old scrapbooks.

I wanted the kids to make such scrapbooks, but they had no interest in it. They never really have. Nothing short of forcing them would make it happen, and vacation memories at gun-point isn’t exactly the sort of charm I was going for.

If they wouldn’t do it for me, they certainly had no interest in doing it for some future collector. And that made me a little sad. At first.

I wondered if we just weren’t making vacations good enough — or at least “like they used to,” but then something happened…

In our condo’s packet of stuff to see and do, I found a brochure for Tampa Bay Ghost Tours. Boasting “All The Best Haunts”, I called and made reservations for the whole crew, including the kids (ages 7 through 18), without asking any real questions. I didn’t ask what the tours were, how long it lasted, or anything that (apparently) sane people ask. I just thought we’d all enjoy it and booked a date.

Now perhaps I should preface all of this by saying that the kids are, among many things, into ghosts.

Along with having hysterically historical parents (both in terms of our ages and our love of history), they are themselves imaginative as well as scientific in their approach to such things as ghosts. (Our household not only watches History Detectives & MythBusters, but Ghost Hunters too).

And it should be noted that one of the favorite Disney attractions was the Haunted Mansion. It was such a favorite, my personal souvenir from Disney was the book, The Haunted Mansion: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies; certain to be a favorite for it’s ghost theme as well as (especially by the eldest) its information on theatrical effects. Oh, and we’ve officially got at least one goth kid. :sigh:

So while I may not have known much about the Tampa Bay Ghost Tours, I did — and do — know a lot about our kids. So I felt confident booking the evening walking tour along the boardwalk at John’s Pass, called the Maritime Mysteries & Pirates of the Pass tour.

The tour itself was everything I could have asked for — and so much more.

It was over an hour of ghost stories, told to us against the backdrop of the beautiful boardwalk at sunset. The stories or legends are of real people who lived in or around John’s Pass, documented and researched by Deborah Frethem who has authored Ghost Stories of St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Pinellas County: Tales From a Haunted Peninsula — a book available in the tour’s gift shop.

Books I eventually purchased.

Yes, “books” — because, for reasons I shall soon explain, each of the kids and myself, needed a copy.

You see, the tour was very cool, but what really made the tour so neat was our tour guide, Quartermaster Moe.

A large, physically imposing man dressed as a pirate (but not in an over-the-top way), his deep voice and mesmerizing storytelling had all three of the children, as well as we adults, spellbound. I can’t really say enough about Quartermaster Moe without further embarrassment of my family or the Quartermaster himself, but will say that Tampa Bay Ghost Tours has a goldmine in that pirate.

He so fascinated the children that when we returned to John’s Pass to purchase books the next day (the gift shop being closed by the time the tour ended), that I had an idea… I’d ask if we could get the quartermaster to sign our books. I wasn’t sure if this would be possible that day, but driving there I figured I could shoo the children to grandma for a few minutes and sneak into the gift shop and ask. Even if it meant having the books sent to us via mail, I imagined how happy each child would be… But when we arrived at the shop, who awaited us outside? Quartermaster Moe!

The kids were falling all over themselves at the sight of him when I asked him if he’d mind signing our copies of the book. He was surprised and said he’d never been “honored” with such a request before, but he’d happily do it — and shouldn’t we have photos of that too? At which time one of the other ghost tour guides offered to take a group photo of us all.

Well, long-story-short, he signed all three kids books and my own copy (because the kids wouldn’t have it any other way) and that, my friends, was the high-light of the day if not the trip. Girls clutched the books like they were pirate booty and even the seven year old boy who normally cannot be bothered with books outside of school sat down to read it!

From a collector’s standpoint, Quartermaster Moe’s signature may have no value — but to our family it sure does. In those bits of ink, the spirit of our family and our vacation are collected. Just like those old scrapbooks. Even if it is something a future collector would scratch his head over…

For unless this article makes Quartermaster Moe famous or something, researching that name will be rather difficult.

And that makes me rethink every book I own, ever seen, which has an unknown or seemingly unrelated inscription… Who might that person be/have been and what secrets does it hold?

It wasn’t until later that I noticed the books had also been signed by the author. Then I felt a twinge of guilt. I was marveling at what will likely be “meaningless” or intrinsic personal value of Moe’s signature and oblivious to what is perhaps the autograph with monetary value.

But then I realized (or at least hope) that Frethem would get our family’s love of such quintessence — she, after all, spent a great deal of time researching and writing about similarly powerful but oft unseen mysteries: ghosts.

Her collection of ghosts, or at least their stories, is a preservation of more than History with a capital ‘H’, but the specters of the past which are as incoherent yet potent as any other memory. And collecting them has value.

Hopefully, you’ve been reading along as I’ve detailed what we saw during Toy Fair in the Javits Center, and the earlier presentation by Hasbro. Allow this segment of this series of Toy Fair entries to detail some of the lovely companies that produce ‘high end’ collectibles – those things that are designed for a more mature audience that understands the delicacy of certain objects. Those adults whose love of collectibles and pop culture are quietly addressed, without any hint of incredulity, and with an actual modicum of respect. These items, which all appeared at Toy Fair this year, are made with this adult collector in mind – even if some of them are wearing tight spandex or have flashing lights and sounds.

First on this list is Tonner Dolls, a company that only came into my sphere of awareness when they started making collectible DC Comics superhero and superheroine dolls. Their doll products are roughly 18 inches tall, so they defy any commonly used miniaturization scale, and are designed for display over play. While these are articulated dolls, and usually run around $150 each, the focus of these is on fashion and carefully constructed clothing – one thing that bridges the awkward and often-misspoken gap between ‘dolls’ and ‘action figures’. It’s a very difficult line to explain.

Among their DC Comics offerings are dolls of Batman, Batgirl, The Joker, Harley Quinn, Aquaman, Poison Ivy, Supergirl, and a few different versions of Wonder Woman. Aquaman’s looking especially doll-like, with his graceful swoosh of handsome, rooted hair and a mesh shirt that covers a second shirt which reflects the whole spectrum. Us figure collectors don’t usually get any rainbow-hued heroes in our collections. Also notable is The Joker, whose scary, inhuman appearance is a very strong nod to the original appearance of The Joker within Batman issue #1 – something that I couldn’t really identify until seeing it in person. Other pop properties that Tonner has made (or is making) dolls for are Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, The Wizard of Oz, Spider-Man 2, and Dick Tracy. Hints were given (and please note that this is my own interpretation of things said) that Tonner might soon start announcing more Marvel Comics characters, and a second visit to the Batman doll as a summer convention exclusive, this time with handy Bat-accesories.

The Tonner homebase in Kingston, NY, coincidentally, is pretty nearby to my hometown.

Corgi and Master Replicas are also two related companies that have a strong focus on the adult, disposable-incomed collector. In the past, they’ve shown up on my nerd-radar by making die cast Marvel superheroes statues, as well as a great series of 1/24 scaled Batmobiles (and a few villain vehicles) that drew directly from every era of Batman comics. They’re also responsible for small and large Star Trek starships from every incarnation of the series, but this upcoming year promises to be a very exciting one.

With the highly-desired 007 license, they promise to make three series of 7” action figures from the property, including a line of different Bonds, different Bond girls, and of course, the awesome bad guys. The enthusiasm expressed by the gents at the display was infectious, and while there were no Bond toys on display, it’s a perfect opportunity to get figures of different Bond characters, especially since Sideshow Collectibles’ 12” offerings dried up long ago. In terms of other Bond items, the 1:1 scale replica Golden Gun stole my heart – not only because it’s radiant and unseemly, but because I have fond memories of playing Goldeneye on the Nintendo 64 for hours in my college dorms. The Golden Gun was the single item that could invariably smoke your opponent in a single, quiet shot – and while my opponents favored grenades and proximity mines, I preferred the stealth of the Golden Gun. To own a realistic one is the definition of sexy.

The companies have also ventured into the smaller-scale action figure realm by creating 3.75” scale action figures for both The Golden Compass and Harry Potter movies, including playsets and vehicles for both. They’ll be making figures from an upcoming animated film called ‘Igor‘, but I’m most excited about seeing the Super Mario Brothers figures that they’re importing from Japan. As a gashapon series that’s been going on for many years within Japan, hundreds upon hundreds of Nintendo characters have already been made in this solid-plastic 2” size, addressing all manner of Goombas, Koopa Troopas, Podobos, Bob-ombs, Birdos, Princesses and Bullet Bills. What remains unaddressed, however, is my sad ability to name just about every one of these from my twisted, useless memory. Larger, articulated figures of Mario, Donkey Kong, Yoshi and more are also on the way and should be arriving any day now at specialty retailers and game stores. There’s nothing better to decorate a classic gaming entertainment center with.

I’ll wrap this up with Kaiyodo’s Revoltech, a Japanese company which produces action figures of above-average quality and, as a result, slightly-above-average but-still-reasonable prices. Your typical American action figure in a 6” – 7” scale might cost around $10 to $15 dollars, but Revoltech’s quality demands a price of roughly $20 to $25 per figure, packaged beautifully in window boxes, painted flawlessly, and with a ridiculous amount of articulation. These things can bend every which way, like nothing you’ve ever seen (unless you’ve really plumbed the depths of the internet, you sickos), and the combination of this ability with great sculpting is the holy grail of the action figure collector. Hell, I bought a handful of these recently without even knowing who the characters were – just because they’re that beautiful.

Since Japan toy culture is partially focused on customization and creating new things out of existing things, a fine art with entire magazines dedicated to it, Kaiyodo’s Revoltech figure joints can easily pop in and out of their sockets, all while being held firmly when need to be. These joints can also, apparently, be purchased separately. The name ‘Revoltech’ seems to be a reference to these unique joints, and the idea of figural parts being completely capable of ‘revolving’, or moving. Almost all of the booth’s catalogues and explanations were written in Japanese, so my information is limited – besides the fact that there are truly awesome.

What all of this spells out is that as a collector, my resistance to the products of this upcoming year is being seriously tested like never before. It’s one thing to sit at home and view product shots of these beautiful things, but it’s another thing entirely to walk around them and see them in person – an activity that’s always dangerously alluring. Unfortunately, Sideshow Collectibles, my favorite producers of things that I can’t afford but buy anyway, opted out of Toy Fair this year and relegated their ‘presence’ to a few new items on their website.

Next time, we’ll take a look at some more DC Comics items made by DC Direct and Mattel – things that truly short out my nerdometer.

So, a pirate walks into a bar with the ship’s steering wheel sticking out of his pants. The bartender asks, “Hey, why’s there a steering wheel in your pants?”

The pirate answers, “Arrrr, it’s drivin’ me nuts!”

I’ll wait while you regain your composure, since you just heard the best joke to ever grace the English language.

It seems that everyone’s into pirates these days, since by my estimation, the golden age of the ninja is entering its twilight years, katanas being traded for cutlasses and quiet dignity fading away being replaced by drunken shanties. The pop-cultural appeal of robots and squid, for those of you who were wondering, are eternal. This pirate preoccupation probably finds its origins in 2003’s ‘Pirates of the Caribbean‘ film, wherein Johnny Depp manages to make pirates sexy and eclectic and dangerous, a fair mix of personality traits to please all genders. This newfound attraction to all things swashbuckley permeated items from Legos to Playmobil sets, Halloween parties, and anything else influenced by the common consciousness. When it began to intersect with collectible card games in 2004, pirates and I began speaking the same language – which was pretty much like English, but with the word ‘matey’ thrown on the end of every sentence and with bigger beards.

In 2004, WizKids Games released Pirates of the Spanish Main. Marketed at a ‘constructible card game’, each pack of cards contained everything that two people would need to play a small game of Pirates, including ships, crew, rules, treasure and tiny little dice. Of course, buying more packs of Pirates would increase the possibilities and dimensions of the game, but it wasn’t necessary. The real stroke of genius behind this game is that the cards are all made of thick plastic, have pop-out pieces, and are used to make three-dimensional ships. No longer were card games constrained to the realm of the conceptual and closely guarded fans of cards held closely to the chests of the players – this was real, live pirate ship action, movin’ around the table, canons a-blazin! Tabletop gaming in a card-based format, and not using large boxes of plastic and metal miniatures, was a pretty impressive and original feat.

I hadn’t thought about these in quite some time, so they remained sealed away in a collectible tin… and then Wizards of the Coast (a completely different gaming company from WizKids, confusingly enough) decided to sue WizKids for copyright infringement on their ‘constructible card game’ idea. Subsequently, I found out that WizKids made a set where ships could fight giant cursed squid instead of just other ships, and I was all over them again. The WizKids / Wizards litigation aside, it had reawoken my interest in pirate gaming, and if WizKids was going to be forced to stop making constructible card games, I wanted to get in on it before the ship sank… so to speak.

After the first set of cards, which included Spanish, English and Pirate ships, WizKids continually added to the variety of ships within the game with each expansion. Eventually, everyone was joining the battle at sea – the Americans, Vikings, Asian ships, Mercenary ships and ghost ships, the Spanish, and even a few unusual submarines and epic sea monsters. These ships, equipped with cannons and crew based on a points system, traverse any available flat surface that you can set up on, navigate around islands, collect treasure, and try to blow off each others’ masts, all at the same time. As the ships fall apart, their destroyed pieces could be popped right back into the cards that they came from. While these parts are tiny and occasionally difficult to work with, any gamer familiar with painting tiny miniatures should have no problem with these.

WizKids has created nine different sets of Pirates cards, each with new ships and crew and treasures, and their website catalogues these in checklists, as well as presents players with scenarios to set the game in. As with most miniature collectible games, WizKids has also released a are number of ‘exclusive’ pirates items, either from mail-aways, conventions, or scheduled gaming events. For being little more than plastic cards, many of these items fetch some high prices on eBay, since there are few things more exciting than forming your own perfect armada of marauding ships.

It’s all the pirate fun that you can have without disemboweling someone. And for only about five bucks.